Like A Handprint On My Heart
by IAmTheRedLady
Summary: Three soulmate mark AUs for Clara Oswald and the Red Lady.
1. Words

Every human was born with the first words their soulmate would say to them stained on their left arm.

Clara Oswald's was " _What are you?_ "

What a strange message.

* * *

Gallifreyans weren't born with words. Or any kind of soulmate-indicative marking of any kind.

Time Lords weren't born to have "soulmates", as it were. Growing up amidst the human, the Red Lady was very confused by her unblemished skin. Wasn't she supposed to have someone too? The others around her were finding their soulmates left and right. What was wrong with her?

Decades later, she would find out the truth about her origins. But in her youth it was very saddening to think she would always be alone.

When she took on her renegade life, traveling time and space with her friends the Doctor and the Master, and then later on when she branched out by herself, Red assumed that the reason she didn't have words was because she simply moved too fast to ever find a soulmate. She didn't plan on getting stuck.

Or meeting Darla.

When Red first uttered the words "Okay, okay. I don't have any weapons," the warrior's dreamy brown eyes lit up in sudden revelation. She gasped, lowering her gun. She stripped off her jacket, rolled up the sleeve of her turtleneck, and showed Red the words branded into her arm. Red had no marks, so she obviously couldn't confirm their connection. But as time went on, they fell deeply in love, and Red felt things in her heart that simply couldn't be anything else-this was her intended.

Red's soul was ripped apart when Darla died.

The Red Lady tried to tell herself it had been a fluke. Darla couldn't be her soulmate anyway. Red didn't have one. It eased the pain…or at least, Red could fool herself into believing it did.

So when she stood in front of the spitting image of her lost beloved, Red couldn't stop the words tumbling from her mouth. "What are you?" she spat angrily, feeling that her pain was being mocked.

And Clara's eyes lit up in a very familiar way.


	2. TiMERs

According to Clara's TiMER, she was supposed to meet her soulmate around the age of thirty.

She was disappointed she met Danny too early for it to be him. She honestly did love him. The numbers on Danny's TiMER were just dashes. Everyone knew what this meant-he would never meet the person he was destined to be with. Danny died young, a hero, but he wasn't alone. Clara made sure of that.

"Make sure whoever it is," Danny told Clara from the beyond. "They're right for you. Not just right."

Clara, after meeting Danny, hadn't checked her TiMER in months. She consulted it now.

 _00:00:00:00_

Somewhere along the way, Clara had meet her soulmate and hadn't even noticed.

* * *

TiMERS went off once, and once only. No exceptions.

Except for one exception.

The Red Lady's TiMER had gone off when she first gazed into the eyes (well actually, the beam of her flashlight) of one Darla Woscal. Darla's did too (the TiMER tradition had carried on even the 51st century). It was a tricky business, these TiMERs, especially for time travelers. But, here they were. Two soulmates.

When Darla died, Red was so distraught with grief she didn't even notice when her TiMER reset: she would now meet her soulmate in a little over a year's time. Her habit of wearing Darla's leather jacket most of the time hid the numbers on her wrist, so it was some time before she even took notice one day while taking a shower. But she didn't care. She simply wasn't interested in finding another soulmate.

The Red Lady met Clara Oswald and neither of them noticed when their TiMERs hit zero together.


	3. Marks

All sentient species in the universe seemed to have a mark giving them a clue as to their soulmate. It translated from race to race, but for humanoids, it was a small depiction on the surface on one's skin right above the heart.

Clara found herself studying the hourglass on her heart in the mirror often, her fingers tracing over it through her clothes unconsciously ever now and then. She thought her soulmate might be the Doctor when she first met him – he was a time traveler. But the Doctor's soulmate was the Master.

The hourglass was red, bright bright red. The very color of love, of anger, the color of life itself. It kind of daunted Clara a bit…

…and also excited her.

Whoever her soulmate was, was most likely very passionate and exciting, and probably another time traveler. Clara wondered, who could this fiery cherry bomb be?

Then Clara met the Red Lady and everything clicked.

* * *

Red's mark was an apple, the color of the richest milk chocolate. It mystified her – maybe her soulmate had brown eyes or skin or hair. But both those attributes were pretty common on Earth, and other planets beside. And the apple? What, did her soulmate own an orchard?

Clara Oswald's hair and eyes were her first clue. God, Red felt like she could melt in the chocolate lakes of her irises. Then later she found out Clara was a teacher. That explained the apple.

But Red was too nervous to speak up. So she waited. Clara was abrasive, even more than she sometimes. Surely she would ask if there was any chance.

But neither of them ever said a word. Both assumed, perhaps, it wasn't meant to be after all.

* * *

One day, Clara was coming out of the shower, wrapped up in a towel, her mark clearly displayed on her sternum.

Red was entering the bathroom the same moment Clara was coming out. Red blushed at seeing Clara wet and practically naked, then she spotted the red hourglass. Red's mouth hung open.

Clara flushed. "Um, yeah, it's just my mark, I think-"

The Red Lady, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement, eagerly tugged aside the collar of her shirt to expose the brown apple over her heart.

"Oh, my…" Clara's words trailed off as she cautiously touched the apple in disbelief.

"So I guess we're soulmates then," grinned Red.

Clara smiled. "I guess we are."

"Can I kiss you?" Red pled. "I've been dying to ever since I first saw you."

"If you don't kiss me right now, I'll be royally pissed at you."

Their lips met, the first time of many.


End file.
